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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25455478">never fret none, about what my hands and my body done</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/numinos_moon/pseuds/numinos_moon'>numinos_moon</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Age Difference, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bearded Steve Rogers, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Medical Procedures, Modern Bucky Barnes, More tags to be added, Nomad Steve Rogers, Parallel Universes, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Shrunkyclunks, Sort Of, just a bit at the beginning</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 09:35:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>17,578</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25455478</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/numinos_moon/pseuds/numinos_moon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After a disastrous visit to a local museum (even by Bucky's standards, since he somehow ends up getting shot), Bucky finds himself injured and in the care of a gruff and mysterious Steve Rogers. As he recovers and comes to trust his caretaker, Bucky learns more about the world has has fallen into, and the people in it, and wonders less and less about when he can finally go home.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>106</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hey! This is my first foray into writing for this fandom, so please be gentle! Kudos and comments greatly appreciated :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s raining when he steps outside. Luckily, Bucky is well-acquainted with the ways of the universe and translated the ‘suspected showers’ in today’s forecast to ‘definite rain that will fuck with any plans to visit the museum today’, and has an umbrella in hand. He is, though, running later than planned, since his boss decided that Bucky needed to finish an extra stack of paperwork before he could leave.</p><p>Maybe it’s a bit ridiculous – or a lot – seeing as he doesn’t actually care about the museum or whatever they’re showing at the moment. It’s a little local spot that he’d never heard of until his furious Googling spree last night, but it’s close enough to work and home to warrant a quick visit. Well, it would be even more worth it if he wasn’t having to rush to get there in the pouring rain. No, it will be so worth it to stick it to his useless, smug ex and prove that he has a life outside their toxic relationship. Fuck that guy.</p><p>When Bucky skids to a stop in front of the museum, there are a few people coming out and opening their own umbrellas. A sign on the door reads ‘9:00 – 18:00’, and it’s pushing five forty-five. No one stops him when he enters, though, so he slips through into the first exhibit. All he needs are a few good photos for Instagram, and he’s good. Then he can go back to his apartment and start the next chapter of his book.</p><p>The first few small rooms are kind of boring, with a few local exhibits and a load of info dumping plaques that he just isn’t in the mood to read. He heads further in and finds an empty room, which is perfect. He may be a millennial, but he hates taking selfies in public and he needs one to prove he hasn’t just stolen the other pictures he plans to take of the art apparently donated by the community. </p><p>He’s in the middle of finding an angle that brings out his cheekbones in the low lights, when the room goes dark. Not exactly beneficial to finding a good selfie angle. Bucky stands in place for a moment, listening, thinking that maybe there’s been a brief power cut. When the lights don’t come back on, however, he’s fairly sure he’s just been accidentally locked in a museum. Honestly, it’s his own fault for practically sneaking in just before closing – but more importantly, this could be a cool photo opportunity. So, before he goes to check for an employee or phone for help, he makes the most of a possibly bad situation.</p><p>Bucky turns on the flashlight on his phone and glances around the small space for the big, colourful painting he was planning on snapping a photo of next. It’s on the opposite wall, so he sets his bag and umbrella on the floor, and his phone on the floor with the camera facing the painting. He painstakingly sets the timer and turns on the flash, then hurries to pose in front of the painting. It’s probably the cringiest thing he’s ever done, and he’s proven right when he checks his phone after the flash goes off. He looks awkward, and like he’s trying way too hard, but the effect of the flash in a dark museum is kind of cool, so he sets his phone up on the floor again and tries again. He watches the light blink one, two, three times as it counts down, and tries to cock his hip just right to look effortless and, well, hot. </p><p>The phone blinks four, five, six times, and he hears someone coming from the last room he was in before the lights went out. He absolutely cannot be caught taking selfies in a closed museum – god, it would be so embarrassing explaining to an unwitting employee what he was doing – so he dashes to the other side of the room as the flash blinks another seven, eight, nine times and then flares brighter for what is probably a cursed photo of him diving for the phone. </p><p>As he scoops it up, he hears voices and footsteps coming from a different direction, these ones louder, and then there’s a cacophony of noise. Someone shouts at him to get on the ground, and he panics, not quite able to see anything but a handful of shadows rushing into the room, white spots filling his vision from getting a face full of his phone flash. The men shout at him again, and then the first set of voices he heard are coming from the other room and Bucky’s panicking, because maybe these people think he’s broken in or something and he’s about to be arrested. He goes to kneel, but maybe he moves too quickly, or maybe it’s because he dropped his phone and startled someone, but as soon as he moves there’s a bang loud and ringing in his ears, along with an explosion of white-hot pain in his left calf. There’s no time to fret, though, no time to fall deep into the pain of it. As he falls to the ground, Bucky’s vision clears enough in time to see the butt of a gun coming towards his head. Everything goes black.</p><p>*</p><p>The first thing Bucky notices when he wakes up, is that he’s in a bed. The second thing he notices is that it’s not his own bed. He feels like he should be more concerned about waking up in a strange bed with no recollection of how or why, but he’s too tired to think. In fact, he feels like he was hit by a truck, then a train, and then ran a marathon. He manages to look over to the window where sunlight would be streaming in, but for a pair of lemon-yellow curtains. He closes his eyes.</p><p>When Bucky wakes again, it’s dark, the lemon curtains now muted and dull. Despite feeling pretty damn rough, Bucky feels more lucid, if a little floaty and numb, and forces himself to look around without using the energy it would take to move. He has no clue where he is. That much is certain. It’s definitely a house, at least. Whose house, though, is the question.</p><p>There’s not much in the room with him. There’s a double bed– with a fairly lumpy mattress – and an old-looking wardrobe beside a closed door. A nightstand sits beside the bed with an innocuous glass of water on it. Yeah, no, he’s not touching that, thanks very much.</p><p>With every intention of leaving wherever this is, Bucky sits up – and immediately regrets it. His head throbs and his vision spins a bit, but all that is dwarfed by the deep, burning pain that flares to life on his leg. He gasps and curls forward over his legs, trying to keep them straight in hopes of controlling the pain. He stares down at his thighs, thinking that he must still be pretty out of it on whatever painkillers someone might have given him, for him to have not noticed the pain before, or the fact that the left leg of his favourite pair of work pants has been cut in a ragged line pretty close to his crotch. What used to be the left pant leg has been tied in a tight tourniquet around his thigh. That’s the least of his worries, though. Bucky digs his nails into his palms in an attempt to distract himself from his leg. It works, kind of, or maybe he’s just acclimatising, because in a minute or so he’s able to open his eyes and sit up a little.</p><p>He remembers now, too. Now that the shock of a strange environment and his leg have faded a bit, he remembers the museum. His phone, that he hopes someone brought along with him, otherwise some unsuspecting cop is going to go through it and see his nudes. He remembers the people and the shouting. The pain. And then, nothing. Now, there’s a pair of lemon-yellow curtains and a lone glass of water.</p><p>Bucky isn’t sure how likely it is that he’s in some generous soul’s home, that someone let him sleep off the painkillers after they helped him out. Honestly, it’s far more likely that he’s in a real-life Misery-type situation and is about to meet his psychotic captor. That, or he’s been reading too much Stephen King again.</p><p>Hesitantly, Bucky looks down at his leg, nails still biting into his palms. He isn’t sure if he should be relieved or worried. One on hand, the wound is fairly small, if a little grotesque – a roundish, red hole with the diameter of a bottle cap, edges jagged and raised in small, uneven peaks of exposed, bloody flesh. On the other hand, Bucky is piecing the pretty obvious clues together and realises that he has a bullet wound in his leg. Luckily, he’s watched enough plastic surgery reality shows that he isn’t too grossed out by the wound itself. It’s more that he never expected to get shot at. Or actually shot. Ever. </p><p>Bucky looks around the room again, starting to feel more than a little hopeless. He tries desperately to think of something positive. Maybe one of the employees at the museum came back and took him home. For some reason. Instead of calling an ambulance. Or – a chill runs down Bucky’s spine – whoever shot him took him.</p><p>With possibly the worst timing in history, the door opens. Bucky freezes in place, hands circled tentatively around his calf, and stares at his visitor. He’s big, almost filling the space in the doorframe. One large hand rests on the doorknob while the other clutches at a handful of miscellaneous items. He looks just as surprised to see Bucky as Bucky is to see him, which doesn’t seem fair seeing as Bucky’s the one has been potentially kidnapped.</p><p>“You’re awake,” the man says after a moment. He steps further into the room and closes the door behind him. Bucky recoils slightly out of instinct, trying not to jostle his leg too much. The man holds up his hands as a sign of peace, but almost drops his handful of supplies and has to fumble around so as not to drop them.</p><p>Bucky almost laughs, the normality of the fumble at odds with the potential severity of the situation, but he quickly sobers when the man comes closer still to set his supplies on the nightstand. He straightens, standing right beside the bed and looking down at Bucky.</p><p>Bucky finds himself attempting to stay as still as possible, like he’s a deer being hunted by a T-Rex or something. The guy’s just so big. Wide shoulders and a trim waist that hint at a level of fitness that makes a laughing stock of Bucky’s thrice weekly morning runs. </p><p>The man’s eyes flit over Bucky, keen and calculating, before he bends and pulls a wooden stool out from behind the nightstand and sits.</p><p>“I only left the room for five minutes,” he says, his voice rough and low enough to rumble in Bucky’s own chest. “Brought the wrong bandages. I had to go swap them.”</p><p>He picks up a bandage from the pile on the nightstand, followed by a few alcohol wipes and a yellowed flannel cloth.</p><p>“Can’t have been pleasant to wake up to,” the man comments with a nod at the bullet hole in Bucky’s leg. Bucky wants to let the man know just how much of an understatement that is, but he reaches over to Bucky and Bucky can’t help but flinch away. The movement jerks his leg enough that he can’t stop the hoarse cry that claws up his throat. The man freezes, his brows furrowed in a frown. Bucky wishes he had just stayed still and played along, because he doesn’t know this man, doesn’t have a read on him at all, and doesn’t want to make him mad.</p><p>Bucky holds himself still again, resisting the urge to look at the wet pulse of blood he can feel oozing from his leg, likely caused by his sudden movement. All the man does is hold his hands up again and level his face into a neutral expression. Bucky thinks he might be aiming for friendly, but isn’t sure that such a stern, serious face is capable of it.</p><p>“I won’t hurt you,” the man tells Bucky, pitching his voice low and soft, “I’m here to patch you up. I was hoping to do it while you were still out, but here we are.”</p><p>Bucky doesn’t answer. The man sighs.</p><p>“My name is Steve. I’m not going to hurt you. I know you can’t trust me, but we’re gonna have that conversation later. Right now, I need to take a look at that leg and finish up what I started before you woke up. That ok with you?”</p><p>Bucky hesitates, but then he looks down at his leg and sees the thick, dark red of the blood dribbling onto the bedding. </p><p>“Fine,” Bucky replies, and – slowly, this time – shifts on the bed to move closer to the man. Steve.</p><p>Steve nods, face stoic again, and drops his hands to prepare. Bucky spies a pair of forceps amongst the bandages and other things, and panics.</p><p>“I was shot,” he blurts. His throat hurts a little when he speaks, as though he’d been screaming, or yelling. Steve looks up from where he is dribbling what smells like alcohol over his hands with no thought for the carpet beneath him.</p><p>“Yes,” Steve says. “There was a bullet lodged in there, but the doc removed it as soon as we brought you back here. You were awake for that. Not entirely lucid, though.”</p><p>Well, that explained the sore throat.</p><p>“The forceps just come with the kit,” Steve adds, his voice a little kinder than before. Bucky nods, not bothering to hide the relief wash over his face since his worry seems to have been pretty obvious.</p><p>“This is gonna sting,” Steve warns, seconds before he uses an alcohol wipe to clean the area around the bullet hole. Bucky can’t help but hiss and reflexively pull his leg away, but Steve clamps one hand over his shin, stopping Bucky from moving. The wipe is replaced with a syringe, which Steve unwraps from a sealed packet, taps against his knuckles, and sticks in Bucky’s calf without so much of a how do you do. Steve stays steady as Bucky twitches in his grasp, slowly pushing the plunger down until the syringe is empty.</p><p>“Give that a minute to work. It’ll numb you a bit,” he tells Bucky as he slides the needle free and wraps it back up. Then he leans back and looks Bucky dead in the eye, deliberate and considering.</p><p>“What?” Bucky asks, a little defensive and irate now. He’s in pain, dammit, and he just wants to sleep again because his head is still fuzzy, but he’s a possible kidnapping victim and it’s probably in his best interests to stay alert.</p><p>Steve raises an eyebrow and shrugs, a small and unassuming action that doesn’t fool Bucky one bit. There’s nothing unassuming about this man. Not with that body. Not with arms that could bench the entire bed, and thighs that could crush Bucky’s head.</p><p>The silence stretches on. Steve continues to watch Bucky with that same, inscrutable look. Bucky decides that it would only fair if he were to stare right back, so he does just that.</p><p>Admittedly, Steve is Bucky’s type on paper, in real life, and in whatever afterlife there may be. Basically, if he had met Steve in any other situation, he’d be climbing him like a goddam tree, and it pains him a little that he’s going to miss out on it. Steve is big. Everywhere. That Bucky can see, anyway, even underneath the faded fatigues he’s wearing. The guy looks like he swallowed a gym, let alone used one, and it doesn’t hurt that his face matches the body pretty nicely. Blue eyes, which Bucky looks away from quickly when they meet his. Longish, blonde hair that curls down around the tips of his ears and around the nape of his neck. A dark blonde beard that does nothing to distract from the sharp angles of his jaw, or the wry tilt of his pink lips.</p><p>But you know. Possible maniac kidnapper, and all that.</p><p>“How’s it feel?”</p><p>Bucky jumps when Steve speaks, then scowls.</p><p>“It fucking hurts.”</p><p>“I can imagine,” Steve agrees, raising that one eyebrow again. “Not the wound itself. The skin around it.”</p><p>Bucky grimaces when he realises that he’s going to have to touch his leg so close to the bullet hole. He hesitates, fingers hovering over the skin there, but Steve saves him by reaching over to brush Bucky’s leg himself. It’s a weird sensation. Like there’s a pane of glass between his skin and Steve’s fingers, but he can somehow feel the suggestion of touch through it. </p><p>“Numb, I think,” Bucky mumbles, a little embarrassed at his sudden squeamishness. </p><p>“Good. Now,” Steve says as he unwraps what Bucky thinks is a curved suture needle and some fine thread, “That will help with the pain, too, with the help of some painkillers. But it’s mainly for this bit. You ready? You’re gonna need a good few stitches.”</p><p>“Where’s this doctor you mentioned?” Bucky asked, suddenly incredibly nervous to let this giant-handed man sew his leg up, even as Steve threads the needle easy as pie.</p><p>“Otherwise engaged,” Steve answers, and the hint of snark in his voice almost distracts Bucky from the needle sliding through his skin.</p><p>“Thought you said you weren’t gonna hurt me,” Bucky bites back through gritted teeth. It’s a weird sort of pain, being sewn up through a numbing agent. The edge has been taken off, but he can still feel the sensation of the needle, and Steve has to clamp the bullet hole closed with his other hand.</p><p>“Ah, well,” Steve murmurs, “Guess that means I owe you one.”</p><p>It doesn’t take long for Steve to stitch him up, even if it does feel like an agonising age. One he cuts the thread and packs everything away, Steve takes the flannel and dips it in the glass of water. Bucky no longer feels the urge to flinch away from Steve, but he’s still surprised when the man proceeds to gently wipe the blood from his leg. Once Bucky no long looks like an extra on a war movie set, Steve unties the tourniquet from its place high up on his thigh. Bucky looks up at the ceiling and concentrates on the weird, numbed pain in his calf to distract his fuzzy brain from the sensation of Steve’s calloused hands on the soft skin of his thigh.</p><p>Work complete, Steve stands and begins to gather his supplies again. Bucky suddenly has a hundred and one questions bubbling up in his throat. He doesn’t want Steve to leave. Is he being held prisoner in this room? Is he free to leave? Where is he and why isn’t he in hospital? As though He can hear Bucky’s thoughts loud as day, Steve glances down at him and raises both brows.</p><p>“I’ll bring you something for the pain when it’s due.”</p><p>Then he turns to the door, opens it, and looks back.</p><p>“Sleep,” he says, an edge to his voice that Bucky suspects is an order, and leaves.</p><p>Once the door is closed, Bucky looks around the room again. He thinks he should try to stand up and gather more information. Or, well, any information. But the fuzziness in his head is rising up again, so he lies back down. He’s out the moment his head hits the lumpy pillow.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The beginning of this chapter is basically just me making up for the fact that I forgot to have Steve bandage Bucky’s leg. Also, I’m British and trying to use Americanisms, so forgive me if I slip up &gt;.&lt; Also, sorry about not uploading sooner, I'm balancing this with uni work</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The door opens with a bang against the wall, startling Bucky awake. Instinctively, he knows it hasn’t been long since Steve stitched him up and he closed his eyes to sleep. He sits up quickly, ignoring the rush in his head to see who his new visitor is. It’s not Steve. Instead, a shorter, far less built man hurries in and holds out his hand with an apologetic smile. Bucky eyes the man’s slightly messy, curly hair, and his oversized blazer before balancing on one elbow to shake his hand.</p><p>“I woke you up, sorry about that,” the man says, “I’m Bruce, or Doctor Banner around here, I suppose. Can I sit…?”</p><p>“Bucky,” Bucky fills in with a nod, figuring it’s lucky that he goes by an unregistered nickname since he doesn’t feel comfortable giving away his full name just yet. He also tries to mask his relief at seeing an actual doctor, since his leg is beginning to ache like a bitch, and he hopes this guy will give him something for it. Dr Banner sits on the edge of the bed instead of pulling out the stool Steve had used.</p><p>“I’m sorry I couldn’t take a look at this earlier,” the doctor said, still with that pleasantly apologetic expression. “Someone else needed my attention more, and Steve is the only one I trusted to send up here without giving you the third degree. I didn’t expect him to forget to cover the wound, though.”</p><p>So, there’s more people here than the two he’s seen so far. Bucky files that information away for later, feeling a little silly even as he does so. It’s not like there’s anything he can do with it, after all.</p><p>“Can I take a look?” Dr Banner asks, as though he can’t see everything pretty damn clearly what with Bucky’s pant leg ripped off right at his crotch. Bucky nods anyway, grudgingly appreciative of the doctor’s manners. Banner smiles again and rummages around in his blazer pockets.</p><p>“Sorry about your pants, by the way,” Banner laughs as he pulls a bandage and dressing out, “Steve was with me when I removed the bullet. I asked him to rip them so I could get to the wound quickly, but I think he overdid it.”</p><p>“You don’t say,” Bucky mutters, watching Banner as he touches the skin around the wound, touch so gentle it’s barely there. He presses the dressing lightly over the stiches on Bucky’s leg, summoning a few spots of blood that soak through the cotton, and makes fast work of wrapping the bandage around his calf.</p><p>“There we are,” Banner smiles, dusting his hands off and getting to his feet.</p><p>“How are the stitches?” Bucky asks, figuring he should take the opportunity to make nice with the guy in charge of his wellbeing.</p><p>“Steve did a good job,” Banner assures him, “This wasn’t his first rodeo.”</p><p>“This happens often, then, ” Bucky states flatly. “Who are you people? Where am I?”</p><p>For the first time, Banner looks uncomfortable.</p><p>“Well, I’m afraid I can’t answer either of those questions, Bucky.”</p><p>“What can you tell me, then?” Bucky snaps, throwing his hands up in the air in exasperation, “I’ve seen what, two people, and neither or you will speak to me? At least, nothing worth saying. If I’m being held prisoner, surely I at least have the right to know who has me.”</p><p>Banner peers at Bucky, his eyes hardening in a way that makes Bucky nervous.</p><p>“Has no one made it clear to you that you aren’t being held here against your will?” Banner asks in a deliberately soft voice. Bucky’s temper flares before he can tamp it down.</p><p>“No, I haven’t,” he bites out, “I’m in a strange place, with strange people, and I was shot at in a fucking museum. Steve stitched me up and left. You’ve bandaged my leg and are about to leave without another word. What the hell am I supposed to think? Unless you show me a CIA badge or some shit, I’m gonna assume I’m a prisoner here.” Bucky pauses and takes a slightly shaky breath. “For all I know, you’re the guys who shot me.”</p><p>There’s a long silence that rings in the room once Bucky falls silent. When the silence is broken, it’s by neither or them.</p><p>“That’s certainly not how I would speak to my suspected captors,” Steve says as he steps forward to fill the doorway. Bucky freezes on instinct again, sure he’s done it now, staring at the flat, blank expression on Steve’s face.</p><p>“Don’t do that,” Banner admonishes Steve, then looks at Bucky. “Don’t listen to him, he just likes to put on a front.”</p><p>“You can’t go around telling people my secrets, Bruce,” Steve protests, coming into the room and cracking a small smile aimed at the doctor. He sets a box of painkillers on the nightstand, along with a bottle of water. Bucky’s mouth is suddenly as dry as the Sahara at the sight of it and grabs the bottle, but he hesitates, glancing between Banner and Steve.</p><p>“It’s sealed,” Steve says, leaning against the side of the closet and folding his arms. Bucky tests the cap on the bottle to confirm, then cracks it open and gulps down about half in one go.</p><p>“Save some of it for the paracetamol,” Banner reminds him. Bucky takes his advice and pops a couple.</p><p>“Will these be enough?” Bucky asks before swallowing the pills.</p><p>“No, which is why I’m going to have you alternate with something stronger. I’m sure Steve will bring you to my office when they’re due.”</p><p>With a pointed smile aimed in Steve’s direction, Banner leaves the room. Which leaves Bucky alone with Steve again, the most confusingly hot, intimidating man Bucky has ever had the dubious pleasure of meeting.</p><p>Steve, unaware of the battle between attraction and wariness waging in Bucky’s head, turns to open the closet doors. Inside, Bucky spies a few thick coats hung up, some boots, and a pair of crutches. Steve pulls out the crutches and sets them against the wall between the closet and the end of the bed. Then he pushes his hands into his pockets – which only draws attention to the fact that his faded fatigues fit him quite well – and rocks on his feet a couple times, almost endearingly awkward for a moment.</p><p>“You aren’t being held prisoner here,” Steve tells him.</p><p>“Says you,” Bucky snarks before he can catch himself, but Steve just gives him that small smile again, the fine lines around his eyes deepening slightly.</p><p>“Says me,” he agrees. “How’s the pain?”</p><p>Bucky pauses to assess. There’s a deep, burning ache that seems to cover much more than just the actual area of the bullet wound, as though the rest of his leg is protesting Bucky’s abysmally bad luck.</p><p>“Like a bitch,” Bucky answers, but then adds, “I don’t know. I don’t exactly have a frame of reference for being shot.”</p><p>“Mm,” Steve hums, “Well, you have crutches if you feel up to standing.” He nods towards the crutches where they’re leant up against the wall. Bucky looks down at his ruined pants, the left leg riding up enough that a sliver of his boxers is peaking out. He yanks the jagged end of his pants down, fighting a blush.</p><p>“Oh yeah,” he says, sarcasm dripping from every word, “I’ll just go wandering around like this shall I? Thanks for your handiwork, by the way. Doctor Banner blamed you for this mess.”</p><p>Steve smiles, hums wordlessly again, then turns and leaves the room. Which. What the hell?</p><p>Bucky stares out at the nondescript hallway beyond the door to his room. What was any of that supposed to mean? Is he free to roam around wherever he is? Is this a test? How does he pass it? By staying put, or by using the crutches? What if he needs to go to the bathroom? He did just down an entire bottle of water, after all. That makes his mind up. Bucky will be damned if he sits here and pisses himself because of some gym bro with communication issues.</p><p>Still, it takes a few minutes for Bucky to gather the courage to slowly move his legs to the edge of the bed and gently lower his feet to the floor. His leg throbs as he shifts his weight around, but it’s ten times worse when the blood rushes down to his feet. He can feel the sickening pulse of what must be blood seeping – or at least trying to seep – through the dressing.</p><p>After a moment, it feels a bit better. That, or he gets marginally more used to the pain than before and can push it aside a little. He reaches for the crutches, positions them in what he thinks is the right way, and stands as slowly as humanly possible. Although he doesn’t put any weight on his left leg, Bucky still has to fight a wave of nausea at the spike of pain. It eases, though, and he tests his balance, taking a few tentative steps forward, making sure to keep his left foot a couple inches off the floor. It’s not too difficult if he accepts that the pain isn’t going away any time soon. It isn’t getting any worse, either, so that’s a plus. Sort of.</p><p>Bucky broke his arm as a kid. He’d been messing around with Becca in the tree in their back yard, misjudged the sturdiness of one of the branches, and fallen awkwardly on his arm. It was long enough ago that he barely remembers the pain, and only gets a dull ache when it’s cold out, but he’s pretty certain it wasn’t a fraction as bad as this. Or he’s just being a huge baby about it, which is just as likely.</p><p>He hobbles out into the hallway. It stretches out on either side of him, with what looks like twenty or so closed doors to his left, and six on his right. The lighting is dim, and the magnolia wallpaper is peeling a little in places. It’s so innocuous that Bucky is convinced for a moment that he’s found himself in a horror film. A little hysterical, Bucky wishes he still had his phone to show his ex the situation he’s landed himself in. This would definitely prove Bucky isn’t boring. </p><p>There’s also a corner to his right with an exit sign hung on the wall, so he turns and hobbles in that direction, hoping to come across an elevator or something. Bucky only gets so far, though, as a door opens abruptly to his right just as he’s passing it. He nearly has a heart attack and has to consciously rebalance himself on the crutches. A short redheaded woman stands in the doorway. Bucky is instantly intimidated ten times as much as he was by Steve, and he can’t even put his finger on why. Behind her, Bucky can see a bedroom laid out similarly to his, but with a bunch of personal effects he can’t make out properly with his periphery, since he refuses to take his eyes off the woman.</p><p>She flicks her eyes over him, lingering on his left leg, which Bucky somehow only now remembers is completely bare up to the top of his thigh. He has to fight down a blush for the second time in the space of ten minutes when the redhead smirks.</p><p>“You should sit,” she tells him, and turns to go back inside. Bucky can’t exactly outrun her if he decides to keep looking for the exit, so he sighs and follows. </p><p>There’s a desk chair with cracked brown leather in front of a desk where a laptop sits open, black-screened. The woman waves him into the chair, where he sits with an embarrassing old man groan as the pressure of holding his foot off the floor is relieved.</p><p>“Did Bruce clear you to walk on that leg?” the woman asks, taking his crutches from where he’s holding them awkwardly to one side and propping them up against the desk. Christ. Did Banner ‘clear’ Bucky? What kind of movie-talk is that? </p><p>“Dr Banner didn’t,” Bucky admits, placing one hand over his bare thigh, as though that’s enough to change the face that he’s a quarter naked in front of another stranger. “But Steve did.”</p><p>Although, it’s less that Steve let him walk around unsupervised and more that Bucky translated the man’s silence to mean whatever he wanted. But he isn’t going to say that. The woman smiles with her teeth as she sits on the bed, making Bucky feel a little like he’s about to be eaten by a shark. Or a big snake.</p><p>“I wouldn’t take medical advice from Steve, he’s known to be reckless around these parts,” she advises him, swinging her feet a little where they don’t reach the floor. It doesn’t make her any less intimidating.</p><p>“And where are these parts, exactly?” Bucky asks, smiling back just as sweetly. The woman holds his gaze for a moment, and Bucky swears his kidneys are sweating he’s that nervous, but then she laughs, and he thinks it might be genuine. The atmosphere in the room lifts before Bucky even realises it was heavy.</p><p>“I think I’m going to like you, James Barnes.”</p><p>That wipes the smile off Bucky’s face.</p><p>“Relax,” the woman laughs at him, a little cruel but mostly in good humour, Bucky thinks. “We picked up some of your belongings in the museum where you dropped them. Your ID was in your wallet.”</p><p>Well, that makes sense. Still. “Banner let me introduce myself instead of giving me a paranoia-induced heart attack,” Bucky tells her flatly.</p><p>“Now that’s just boring, isn’t it?” she smirks. “I’m Natasha Romanov. There, we’re even.”</p><p>“Sure, apart from the fact that I still don’t know what’s going on.”</p><p>“That bit’s easy,” Natasha smiles, leaning forward to prop her elbows on her knees. It makes her white t-shirt fall forward at the neckline, in a way that he would be able to see down it if Bucky looked. But Bucky’s gay as the day is long, and a decent fucking human being at that, so he keeps his eyes on her face and gets a slightly less threatening smile for his trouble, which makes him feel like he’s being tested.</p><p>“You’re at a safe house,” Natasha continues, “Which is where we took you after you were caught up in the crossfire between us and an organisation we’ve been hunting for a few years.”</p><p>She says it so matter-of-factly that it takes Bucky a moment to process it all. It does sound as though he’s been taken in by some sort of alphabet agency after all. He also realises that even though she did actually answer all of the questions he’s had since waking up, she somehow did it without revealing any real information at all. Bucky decides not to push his luck, instead opening his mouth to ask where the bathroom is, when Steve striding past Natasha’s open door catches his eye. Steve keeps going without seeing or acknowledging either of them, though, so Bucky looks back at Natasha.</p><p>“How many of you are here?” Bucky asks instead, “It’d be nice to know how many more strangers I’m going to be woken up by while I’m trying to sleep off the shock, and whatever painkillers Dr Banner gave me when you brought me here.”</p><p>Natasha laughs again, leaning back and thinking for a moment. “There’s a few more,” she tells him, “Is that what you were trying to work out when I caught you searching for an exit?”</p><p>Bucky ducks his head, embarrassed even though all he was doing was looking for a bathroom, but Natasha waves him off.</p><p>“It’s fine. You have good instincts, if zero training on how to follow through on them.”</p><p>That’s when Steve all but bursts into Natasha’s room, his hair a little dishevelled. He opens his mouth, eyes on Natasha, but then clocks Bucky and stops. He narrows his eyes slightly, jaw clenching, and fuck if he isn’t nice to look at.</p><p>“There you are,” Steve huffs, coming into the room and dropping a bundle of what looks like clothes on Bucky’s lap, but carefully, to not jostle him. He runs a hand through his hair. “I brought you these, but you’d disappeared.”</p><p>“I found him wandering the halls,” Natasha says with a smirk aimed at Bucky, who wants to defend himself against her choice of words. He was not wandering the halls. He literally only made it, like, two doors down. It’s not like he was casing the place, or got lost or whatever.</p><p>“I was just looking for a bathroom,” Bucky protests, looking through the clothes in his lap. Steve has brought him a pair of grey sweatpants, a matching grey sweater, a white t-shirt like the ones both Natasha and Steve are wearing, and some socks and underwear. </p><p>“He shouldn’t be wandering around on his own,” Steve says, and Bucky snaps his head up to glare at Steve.</p><p>“Hello, I’m right here,” Bucky waves a hand at Steve’s pinched face, “Can we maybe not talk about me like I’m not in the room? And my name is Bucky, not ‘he’, which you’d know if you’d bothered to ask. Also, you were the one who gave me the crutches and left me to it.”</p><p>Steve stares at him, raising one hand to scrub at his beard, perplexed, while Natasha grins like a cat that got the cream.</p><p>“I went to get you some clothes that weren’t ripped,” Steve tells him in an over exaggeratedly patient voice, “I didn’t tell you to try standing up on your own.”</p><p>“You do know you didn’t actually tell me that out loud, right?” Bucky asks, genuinely wanting to make sure the guy doesn’t have some sort of memory issue he doesn’t know about yet, since he sounds so sure he had made himself clear. Steve evidently doesn’t appreciate Bucky’s thoughtfulness.</p><p>“I assumed I wouldn’t have to spell it out for you,” he says with raised brows. Then, dismissing Bucky, he turns away to address Natasha. “Stark wants you downstairs. Says he’s finished making the repairs you wanted.”</p><p>Natasha rises to her feet with a nod and a brief glance at Bucky. “Is he in the lab?” she asks, pulling a hair tie from around her wrist and putting her hair up into a loose bun.</p><p>“Yes. And don’t go starting anything down there, I’ve already had to talk him down once today, and once is my limit.”</p><p>“Yessir,” Natasha says before slipping out the door, and even though she says it with a hint of sarcasm and a smirk, the pieces fall into place for Bucky. It clicks. Steve is in charge here, of these people and this place. Which explains a lot, to be honest. There’s this whole daddy aura around the guy, and he pulls it off so effortlessly that only some sort of military-type thing could possibly explain it. </p><p>Steve is looking at Bucky again, and Bucky hopes to god it doesn’t show on his face that he just thought the word ‘daddy’ right in front of the guy.</p><p>“Come on, we’ll get you out of those clothes and into something more comfortable,” Steve offers, picking up the bundle of clothes, and good god surely he hears himself. Get Bucky out of these clothes? Yes puh-lease. “Then I’ll show you around if you aren’t in too much pain.” Steve holds out a hand for Bucky to take, then as he’s helping Bucky up, adds, “I hope that was clear enough for you. Would you like me to write that down in bullet points?”</p><p>Bucky narrows his eyes at Steve as he balances on one foot, but the other man’s face is carefully blank and innocent. Bucky doesn’t buy it for a second, and snatches the crutches when Steve hands them over.</p><p>“You this much of a shit to all your guests?” Bucky asks, truly diving in headfirst now, trusting he isn’t going to be shot a second time if he talks back. Steve doesn’t seem to mind. He just gestures to the door and follows Bucky as he makes slow progress out into the hallway, closing Natasha’s door behind him.</p><p>“I’m out of practice,” Steve murmurs, practically in Bucky’s ear because he slides past him to open the door to Bucky’s room. Thank god, because all these doors look identical, but did he really need to get so close like that and give Bucky goosebumps?</p><p>“We don’t exactly have many guests,” Steve adds, raising those damned eyebrows at Bucky again as he watches Bucky limp past into the room and sits carefully on the edge of the (his?) bed. Steve shuts the door and flips a latch that Bucky hadn’t noticed before, locking the door from the inside. Which is an interesting detail, since that means Bucky has been given a room where he could lock himself inside. Now, he isn’t so naïve as to think they couldn’t knock the door down if they wanted – Steve could probably kick it in himself if he wanted – but it goes a long way to reassuring Bucky that these people might not want him dead. Yet, at least. He’s probably pushing his luck, if he’s honest with himself. </p><p>“Time to get me out of these clothes?” Bucky asks, doing Steve’s eyebrow thing right back at the guy as Steve sets the clothes on the bed. Steve gives him one of those small smiles and gestures for Bucky to stand back up. </p><p>Getting changed with the help of a stranger proves to be one of the most awkward things Bucky has ever done, including his asshole ex. He’s suddenly incredibly vulnerable, injured and dependent on a stranger who could overpower Bucky on the best of days. All of his bravado vanishes as Steve reaches to unbutton his ruined pants, and he waves the other man’s hands away to do it himself, concentrating on balancing on one foot at the same time. Once he’s pushed the pants down to his thighs, he sits again with a tired sigh, silencing his instinctive protests when Steve crouches to first pull his shoes off, then remove Bucky’s pants, careful and slow as he lifts the frayed fabric over the bandages. </p><p>“Seriously, what did you have against my pants?” Bucky huffs, a little overdramatically as he looks at the crumpled heap of them on the floor. But seriously, they were good pants. Steve huffs a short laugh, the accompanying smile not reaching his eyes.</p><p>“I was in a hurry,” he admits, “Wasn’t thinking clearly enough. None of us were expecting to have an injured civilian on our hands.” </p><p>Then, oddly enough, Steve pulls off Bucky’s socks, plucks the fresh pair from the bed and slides the first one up over Bucky’s right foot.</p><p>“Assuming you’re in charge around here, why don’t you just make someone else help me? Surely you have better things to be doing than this,” Bucky asks, watching as Steve puts on the other sock, gentler this time so as not to jolt his injured leg.</p><p>“What makes you think I’m in charge?” Steve asks, sitting back on his heels and looking up at Bucky, which doesn’t help Bucky’s attraction to the guy.</p><p>“I’m not stupid,” Bucky protests, but Steve continues, ignoring him.</p><p>“I don’t have anything better to do while we’re here. Besides, this was my fault.”</p><p>Bucky eyes Steve carefully before asking, “Did you shoot me?”</p><p>“No, of course not,” Steve says, affronted.</p><p>“Then I fail to see how this is your fault. If anything, it’s mine for being there in the first place.”</p><p>“It’s not your fault, Barnes,” Steve sighs, getting to his feet, “Can you manage the rest yourself?”</p><p>“Oh no you don’t,” Bucky stops him from leaving, holding out a hand, “You don’t get to see my ID when all I get is ‘Steve’.”</p><p>“Steve Rogers,” Steve answers with a smile that actually looks amused instead of stoic and manly, then repeats, “Can you manage?”</p><p>Bucky nods.</p><p>“I’ll wait outside. Shout if you need help. You can lock the door if you want, but I won’t come in until you tell me to.”</p><p>With that, Steve unlatches the door, leaves, and closes the door firmly behind him. Bucky makes quick work of stripping off his shirt in favour of the baggy t-shirt and sweater, but it takes him longer to shimmy out of his boxers and into the fresh pair. They’re a little big on him, which makes his face flare in a burning blush when he wonders if they belong to Steve. It takes him even longer to pull on the sweats, because he’s scared to let the fabric drag over the bandages.  The sweatpants are big, too, so he ties the waist tight and rolls up the cuffs a couple times. He pauses, looking at the door, then calls for Steve.</p><p>Steve opens the door a crack, peeking through as if to make sure Bucky isn’t swanning around in the nude for whatever reason, then comes in all the way. He gives Bucky a once over, and Bucky feels his body temperature rise by a couple degrees as Steve’s expression darkens a touch, his blue eyes meeting Bucky’s with a subtle hunger that wasn’t there even when he stripped Bucky of his pants just moments ago. It’s so subtle, however, that Bucky’s sure he imagined it, as Steve turns away to open the closet. When he turns back, holding a pair of full-foot, old man slippers, Steve’s face is as blank as ever.</p><p>“Ready for that tour?” Steve asks, holding up the slippers. Bucky nods, hoping his cheeks aren’t as bright a red as they feel.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Sorry again for the wait! The update schedule is likely going to be erratic, but I hope the story's worth it!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Once Steve has helped Bucky into the slippers – they’re a worn tartan colour, the kind Bucky’s dad would wear – and up onto the crutches, they leave the room. Together, this time.</p><p>It’s a slow walk to the end of the hallway, and Bucky’s relieved to see an elevator when they round the corner. It looks newer than the peeling wallpaper and mouldy skirting boards, which is also somewhat a relief. Bucky’s not exactly keen to get into an ancient elevator whose safety is dubious at best. The doors slide open as soon as Steve presses the button, smooth as a knife through melted butter, and Bucky retracts his previous thought. The elevator isn’t just new, it’s goddammed futuristic. Inside is all metallic, seamless lines, and when they step inside, there isn’t a control panel in sight.</p><p>“Fifth floor,” Steve says into the air, standing in what Bucky presumes to be a loose version of a parade rest, hands behind his back, making his barrel of a chest bulge even more. The elevator doors slide closed and Bucky feels the slightest movement that he probably wouldn’t have noticed if he wasn’t unsure on his feet – foot – and crutches.</p><p>“I can’t even tell if we’re going up or down,” Bucky admits, craning his neck to look around the entire metal box, trying to find a microphone or something to explain how the thing works.</p><p>“Up,” Steve says shortly, then sighs and adds, “You won’t be able to use the elevator yourself, by the way. Or the stairs.”</p><p>“What if there’s a fire?” Bucky asks stupidly, earning himself one of Steve’s raised brows.</p><p>“There are emergency procedures,” is all Steve can answer, because the doors open, and Bucky’s jaw drops even as he hobbles past Steve out of the elevator. </p><p>To their left is a long line of doors much like the hall on Bucky’s floor, complete with peeling wallpaper and crooked door numbers. To their right, however, is a wall of glass that stretches up and curves over their heads to join with the jagged line of what is left of the roof, bricks and plaster crumbling away into even, thick glass. The place looks like it was hit by a bomb and then had a very modern and fashionable band aid smoothed over the damage. Even more outlandish, though, is what’s beyond the glass.</p><p>A vast, gleaming white tundra stretches as far as Bucky’s eye can see. Undisturbed snow, right up to the horizon. Not a tree, building, road, or person in sight. What the ever-loving hell has Bucky gotten himself into?</p><p>“What the actual fuck?” Bucky breathes – rather eloquently, he thinks, for the extremity of the situation. For all he knows, he’s been brought to Antarctica. He squints past his reflection – it’s still dark out, but there’s the hint of daylight glinting off the snow.</p><p>Steve sighs again from beside him and says, “We’re a ways away from New York, Bucky.”</p><p>Bucky shoots him a look. “You don’t say, Dorothy.”</p><p>Steve shoots him one of those small smiles, and tips his head to the side, towards the hallway lined with glass and doors. “Come on.”</p><p>Bucky follows him through a door labelled with a lopsided 502, and his mind’s already spinning in panicky, head circles, so he begins to genuinely worry for his mental stability when he clocks the room inside and feels his jaw drop yet again. In any other circumstances, it might be called a recreation room, but Bucky thinks the term does the place a disservice. The walls between each room along the hallway have been knocked down to create one, long space. It’s a mixture of sleek metal, thick glass and the original wallpaper. At the far end of the room is a gym area, with various pieces of equipment and a weight station. The near end houses a kitchen with a large island lined with red barstools. Running through the centre of the room is a long, narrow pool. It’s a strange sight, one that doesn’t exactly match the people he’s met so far. Not that he actually knows them at all, but why would a bunch of military types have a luxury hangout space in their safehouse?</p><p>Steve leads Bucky to the island in the kitchen, takes his crutches carefully, and lets his hands hover at Bucky’s waist.</p><p>“May I?” he asks.</p><p>Bucky manages to nod. His face flushes hot as soon as Steve grips him firmly and lifts him onto one of the barstools with ease, like lifting a feather. Bucky can’t help a hiss at the pain in his leg as his weight changes and settles, though, and Steve frowns a little before turning away without comment.</p><p>“This is the rec room,” Steve says as he rounds the island and leans against his elbows on the countertop opposite Bucky. “I don’t know why we have one, but that’s Stark for you.”</p><p>“You sure you’re in charge?” Bucky asks, trying to make his voice light without making it obvious that he’s digging a little.</p><p>“Once upon a time,” Steve shrugs.</p><p>“Who’s this Stark guy?” Bucky asks when it’s clear Steve isn’t going to elaborate extensively on the inner workings of his team for a complete stranger. Shame.</p><p>“Our engineer. You’ll likely meet him soon. S’nearly breakfast. We can stick around and meet everyone now, if you want, and have something to eat. Or we can continue the tour.”</p><p>Bucky, burning with curiosity, wants to see more but also wants to meet the other people he’s sharing this bizarre building with. His stomach grumbles loudly, making his decision for him. Steve brow ticks up, and he stands. </p><p>“That answers that,” he murmurs, opening one of the cupboards which turns out to be a freezer. </p><p>“Well, I haven’t eaten in…” Bucky pauses, “Wait, how long has it been?” He pauses again, watching Steve pull out a loaf of bread and some packs of bacon form the freezer. “Breakfast? It’s dark out, how early do you people wake up?”</p><p>“We’re above the Arctic Circle,” Steve informs him as he locates frying pans and a giant toaster with six slots. “The sun won’t come up for another few hours. It’s around seven-thirty now, and it’s Sunday.”</p><p>“We’re… we’re in the Arctic Circle?” Bucky breathes, scrubbing his hands over his face, “What the fuck? Sunday?”</p><p>Then it all hits him at once. He’s what, in Alaska? Canada? Did he guess right earlier and he’s actually in Antarctica? He’s stuck somewhere in a deserted tundra with a bunch of potentially dangerous strangers. Not only that, but he slept through the entirety of Saturday. He doesn’t realise he’s shaking until Steve speaks.</p><p>“Hey,” he says gently, “I know this is a lot, but you’re safe here with us.”</p><p>“I- I need to go home,” Bucky stammers, looking wide-eyed past Steve, “My job, I’ll get fired if I don’t show up tomorrow, they’re that shitty, and I- I have plants to water at home, and my sister will kill me if I miss a call from her, and-”</p><p>“Bucky, hey,” Steve interrupts, his voice firm but soft. </p><p>Bucky closes his mouth and focuses on Steve, on the grey peppering his temples, Bucky’s fingers tapping out a nervous rhythm on the counter. Steve looks down at his hands and for a ridiculous moment, Bucky thinks he’s going to reach out and cover them with his own, but instead Steve looks back up and speaks.</p><p>“Breathe,” Steve says, and it’s enough of an order that Bucky sucks in air automatically, his chest expanding. He feels a little lightheaded.</p><p>“There, that’s it, good,” Steve murmurs, voice quiet between them, “Keep going. In deep, and out. Well done, kid. I’m sorry you’re in this position, it isn’t fair on you. But I want you to know that you are safe.” Then he smiles that damned lovely, small half-smile of his. “We have your stuff here, too. Nat’s probably stashed it somewhere, but I’ll get it back to you, alright? Your phone should be fine to use.”</p><p>Steve waits for a reply, his face open for the first time since Bucky met him, eyes kind with a hint of that small smile in them, mouth ticked up on one side. And damn if it doesn’t make him that bit more fuckable.</p><p>“Ok,” Bucky nods, voice embarrassingly small. He takes another deep breath, and Steve nods back, seemingly satisfied. That’s when the door bangs open and Natasha, Banner and two men Bucky hasn’t yet met stride in. Steve’s gone from Bucky’s personal space in an instant to start on breakfast. Bucky doesn’t have the time to continue feeling scared and anxious, because Natasha comes to sit beside him, and Banner gives him a small wave as the other two men banter back and forth about something innocuous.</p><p>“He giving you the grand tour?” Natasha asks Bucky with a smirk, glancing over at Steve where his back is turned as he sets to frying the bacon and loading up the toaster.</p><p>“Ooo, a tour,” one of the men coos, in the middle of filling an impressively large coffee pot, “No one else gets the VIP treatment.”</p><p>“Our other visitors haven’t exactly been guests,” the other man reasons, rolling his eyes exaggeratedly at Bucky before sitting down opposite Natasha, beside Banner, and holding out his hand. “Hi, I’m Sam. You’re Bucky, right?”</p><p>Bucky’s a little starstruck for a second, because how many unfairly beautiful people is he going to meet when he feels like he’s just been shot – oh wait – and he hasn’t combed his hair in apparently two days? He shakes Sam’s hand.</p><p>“Yep, that’s me,” he says, voice weak after his impending panic attack. Sam’s smile softens even more, and Bucky instantly likes the guy.</p><p>“This walking disaster is Clint,” Sam adds, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder at where the other guy is lining up a bunch of chipped mugs next to where Steve’s cooking.</p><p>“See if you get any coffee,” Clint grumbles, even as he almost drops the coffee pot as he pours.</p><p>“And Tony should be here, too,” Sam says, and turns to Natasha, “You see him earlier, Nat?”</p><p>“Lab,” she shrugs, and everyone hums in agreement as though that explains everything. Although maybe it does, because in the next moment, the door slams open and another guy with an immaculate goatee steps through wearing an oil-streaked tank and yellow sunglasses. He makes a beeline for Bucky, who smiles wanly in greeting. The guy doesn’t reach for a handshake when he stops by Bucky’s stool, just leans in too close and peers.</p><p>“Tony,” Sam sighs, “Leave the new guy alone.”</p><p>Stark ignores him and picks up one of Bucky’s borrowed crutches between a finger and thumb, holding it away from himself as though it might turn into a snake and bite him.</p><p>“Absolutely not,” he declares, shoving the crutch at Bucky, “Not under my thrice-reinforced, armoured glass roof. I’ll make you something better.”</p><p>“He might be perfectly fine with the crutches, Tony,” Banner points out, accepting a mug of coffee from Clint and hugging it close. Stark rolls his eyes and gives Bucky a long-suffering look, as if to say, ‘can you believe these plebeians?’</p><p>“I’m sure the Buckster here has impeccable taste and would rather be shot in his other leg, than-”</p><p>“Inappropriate, Stark,” Steve snaps, and Bucky jumps a little, fumbling with the crutch in his hands.</p><p>“What?” Stark demands, offended, then turns to Bucky, “You want a one-of-a-kind leg brace that’ll let you walk instead of using those Neanderthal thingamabobs? You look like a kid who has all the newest gadgets.”</p><p>The ‘kid’ gets under Bucky’s skin in a way it hadn’t at all when Steve said it mere minutes ago. Also, Bucky’s dirt poor, how the hell does he look like someone with the newest tech?</p><p>“Don’t call me kid,” he tells Stark flatly, propping the crutch up next to the other one, “But I wouldn’t say no to the brace. Would it hurt?”</p><p>“What do you take me for?” Stark grins, already on his way out of the room.</p><p>“A complete stranger,” Bucky mutters, unable to help but laugh when Stark does finger guns at him before he disappears.</p><p>“I’ll bring him some food later,” Banner sighs.</p><p>“Coffee?” Clint asks Bucky, already sliding a mug onto the counter in front of him, along with a pot of sugar and powdered creamer. Bucky thanks him profusely and spoons enough sugar and creamer into the mug that it looks more like a milkshake than coffee. Clint snorts and promptly downs his own before pouring himself another mug. Bucky takes a sip and groans at the taste – it’s no Starbucks latte, but it’s coffee, so come on – and Steve glances over with a raised brow, slight mocking, before beginning to dish up the food. It smells delicious and Bucky’s stomach growls again. </p><p>They all eat. Bucky is quiet, appreciative of the toasted bread stuffed with bacon, while the others chat. He notices that they don’t say anything that would give away where they are, who the people were who shot Bucky, or anything to do with their own identities, but Bucky is happy to listen to them bicker about baseball and music. Natasha slaps Clint upside the head when he speaks with his mouth full, and then proceeds to show Clint her own full mouth when he complains. Sam asks Steve how he is, and Steve nods stoically. Banner sips his coffee quietly with his eyes closed. It’s kind of nice, and Bucky is grateful he isn’t still sat on the bed downstairs alone.</p><p>That’s when Bucky realises something.</p><p>“Have I met everyone, now?” he asks at large. Banner and Sam nod. “I thought the reason Dr Banner couldn’t sew my leg up was because one of you needed more urgent attention. Are you all ok?”</p><p>The atmosphere in the room shifts immediately. Clint clears his throat and shoves the rest of his bacon sandwich in his mouth. Natasha tenses beside him. Sam gets up and starts clearing plates. Banner looks at Steve uncertainly. Steve, however, eats the last corner of his sandwich and thanks Sam calmly when he takes away his plate.</p><p>“Everyone’s fine, don’t worry,” Steve says, dismissive. Bucky narrows his eyes. He wants to demand answers, but at the same time he needs to keep reminding himself that these people are strangers and he doesn’t want to jam his foot irreversibly into his mouth. So he keeps his eyes down and finishes his coffee, instead. There’s a moment of quiet, the only sound Sam washing up at the sink.</p><p>“Don’t you lot have things to be getting on with?” Steve asks eventually, voice casual, but Bucky hears a tone of command in there somewhere. “Remember, I want to be out of here in three days at the most. Natasha, can you bring Bucky his bag?”</p><p>Bucky perks up at that. Natasha nods, and slips out of the room.</p><p>“Oh, before I forget,” Banner says, patting down his pockets, “Your painkillers. Here. Take the stronger now, or when you’re ready, and the weaker in two hours. Try to stagger them like that so you don’t get too drowsy. If they don’t help with the pain enough, we can try something else.”</p><p>“Thank you,” Bucky tells the doctor earnestly, pushing the boxes into the pockets of his too-big sweatpants.</p><p>“How are you feeling at the moment?”</p><p>Bucky wiggles his left foot a bit and winces, but shrugs, “It hurts. Hurts more when I move it, but it’s that bad.”</p><p>“That would be the painkillers,” Banner smiles, and collects Sam from where he’s finished washing up. They leave together, speaking low under their breaths. Bucky doesn’t have time to be nervous and gay about Steve again, because Natasha’s back a moment later. Bucky sees his bag swinging from her shoulder and feels lighter already. His phone should be in there, and if it’s not broken, he can call someone. His sister, the police, whoever.</p><p>“Thanks,” he tells Natasha, who shrugs and pours herself a second mug of coffee. Bucky opens his bag and digs around inside. Umbrella. Keys. Charger. Wallet. Gum. Some old receipts. Phone. He pulls it out and – thank god it has some juice left in it – droops when he sees the no signal symbol at the top of the screen. Well, maybe he can call someone when they arrive at wherever Steve wants to go in three days’ time. Or maybe one of the others has a phone with signal. He unlocks his phone anyway, out of habit more than anything, and immediately wants to leave his own body and sink down into the pits of hell when he sees that the camera app loads up first. That he got into this situation by taking some cringey selfies to make his ex jealous is something he would love to forget.</p><p>Before he closes the app, though, he glances at the little square at the bottom that shows him the last photo that was taken. It’s dark and blurry, with a splotch of white in one corner where the flash hit something, and looks nothing like the photos he was attempting to take that night. Curiosity gets him, and he clicks on the photo. </p><p>Bucky’s stomach plummets as he realises that he’s probably looking at the moment he was shot. The bright spot of flash is one corner of Bucky’s face, his eye screwed up in pain. The rest of the photo is dark, but he can see someone else in the background, and turns the brightness all the way up. It’s a man, face screwed up in anger as he appears to be shouting something, his gun raised at someone else out of frame. It’s a terrifying image for Bucky to have accidentally captured, and he realises that he’s shaking again. </p><p>“What’s-?” Steve starts, and Bucky didn’t realise he and Natasha were watching him, but then Steve is grabbing the phone from Bucky and staring down at the picture. His face flickers from concerned to disbelieving, to downright livid. He drops the phone.</p><p>“Take him back downstairs and meet me in the conference room,” Steve snaps, on his feet and across the room in seconds, “I’ll fetch the others.”</p><p> Bucky stares after him, then down at the phone, at the man in the background, face twisted and enraged as he shouts, gun clearly aimed at someone. Likely one of the people Bucky met today.</p><p>“Come on, then. Looks like work’s starting early,” Natasha smiles grimly, coming over to help Bucky up and passing him the crutches. She puts his phone back in his bag and gestures for Bucky to lead the way.</p><p>Once they’re back in Bucky’s acting bedroom, he’s almost glad he isn’t going to get the rest of the tour just yet. His leg is really starting to ache, the wound itself a sharp epicentre of pain. He just wants to pop those strong painkillers Banner gave him, and sleep. Natasha sticks around for a few minutes, telling Bucky about a bathroom a few doors down in the opposite direction from the elevator, and tells him to stay put. Once she’s gone, Bucky enacts his plan, taking two of the pills as directed on the box, and falls into a surprisingly deep sleep.</p><p>*</p><p>When he wakes up it’s dark again. Bucky takes more pills and struggles to the bathroom. He has a time of it trying to sit on the low toilet and standing back up without help, but he manages. Back in his room, he flings open the butter yellow curtains and stares at the snow for a moment before shaking his head and sitting back on the bed, pulling his bag towards him. He finds a socket on the wall under the bed, so he manages to plug in his charger and connect his phone to play a few games of spider solitaire. He also finds a worn paperback copy of some trashy romance, which he assumes Natasha slipped in because it’s certainly not his, and ends up losing hours of time to it.</p><p>He’s just worrying over the heroine’s unrequited love for the hunky gardener, when he hears shouting outside in the hall. Bucky, running on pure instinct, shoves his phone, charger and Natasha’s book into his bag and slings the strap over his body. Seconds later, Steve slams into the room, urgent but pretty calm considering whatever has him moving quickly to the wardrobe and pulling out one of the thick coats. Steve’s wearing a strange, skin-tight suit in a deep blue that’s almost black, the sleeves torn or rolled just below the elbows. It does wonders for his ass and forearms. When he turns with a coat, Bucky sees a faded, grey, star design on his chest.</p><p>“Put that on,” he tells Bucky, his tone brooking no argument, and kneeling to put the slippers back on Bucky’s feet. Bucky nods even though Steve can’t see him do it, and tugs the coat on over his bag, zipping it up. Steve stands, looks at Bucky and pulls the fur-lined hood over his head, and nods.</p><p>“We’re leaving,” Steve informs Bucky, glancing out the exposed window and switching off the overhead light. They’re plunged into a semi-darkness, lit only by the dim pool of light spilling into the room from the hallway.</p><p>“Oh,” is all Bucky can say, unsure of what reaction he should have. Are they leaving ahead of schedule and it’s a good thing? Or has something bad happened? He thinks of the men in museum, of that man with hate in his eyes in the picture on Bucky’s phone, and Bucky hopes it’s not the second option. How could he forget his chronic bad luck, though?</p><p>“Someone’s managed to track us here. We’re outgunned, so we’re retreating,” Steve expands, and Bucky wants to bury himself under the dusty covers on his bed and never come out. But then Steve is holding out his hands and asking, “Since we have to be fast, I’m going to carry you.”</p><p>Despite Bucky clearly having no choice in the matter, Steve waits for an answer, so he nods. He can hear Natasha shouting down the hall.</p><p>“It’s going to hurt,” Steve warns, even as he gently helps Bucky into a position where he can pick him up more easily, “I’ll be running, so your leg will be jostled, but I need you to try to stay calm and to keep your arms and legs tucked in as much as possible.”</p><p>“Ok,” Bucky agrees, his voice coming out small. Steve nods and picks Bucky up, one arm under his knees and the other under his back, likely to try to protect his leg as much as possible. Bucky does his best to curl into a ball in Steve’s arms, bringing his knees up and folding his arms in against his chest. Steve moves his arms to compensate and nods down at Bucky, then promptly turns and jogs out into the hallway. Steve was right, it does hurt his leg, but Bucky bites his lip instead of whimpering, and curls further into Steve’s chest. He’s lucky he took Banner’s pills when he did.</p><p>“You have it?” Steve calls out, over Bucky’s head. Bucky turns to see Natasha stepping out of her room. She’s also in a skin-tight catsuit, and Bucky can’t see any pockets so he has no clue what she may or may not have.</p><p>“I have it,” she nods, and darts down the hallway towards the elevator. Steve follows, keeping pace easily even with Bucky in his arms. Bucky concentrates on not concentrating on his leg, digging his teeth deeper into his lip until he tastes blood. </p><p>When they reach the end of the hall, instead of using the elevator, Natasha turns to the blank wall opposite and places her palm against it. There’s nothing there except more peeling wallpaper, so Bucky’s confused. But then there’s a quiet grinding sound and the wall shifts and retracts, revealing a hidden staircase. Just before they can step inside, there’s a sound so loud it takes Bucky a moment to name it – explosion – and the building shakes and shudders around them. A siren starts up, an eerie, flat thing that makes the hairs on Bucky’s arms stand up. Natasha swears under her breath and ushers Steve ahead, closing the wall behind them seamlessly after she follows. It’s almost pitch black, but neither Steve nor Natasha seem phased.</p><p>“Hold on,” Steve urges Bucky, and leads the way down the stairs at a pace Bucky is sure would end in him in a crumpled heap at the bottom. Bucky finds himself clawing mindless at Steve’s chest, tasting blood in his mouth as his leg is jolted around. The stairs go on forever. Bucky tries to keep count to distract himself, but gives up after he guesses what must be at least nine flights and turns his face against Steve, teeth grit. At one point, the building rumbles and shakes again.</p><p>Eventually, finally, the stairs make way to a dark tunnel. Steve picks up speed and Bucky has to swallow the blood in his mouth before he chokes on it. He hears another explosion and it sounds further away now, but it’s still close enough to make the ground tremor. The end of the tunnel opens up onto what looks like a barebones landing pad for helicopters. The thing sat on it certainly is not a helicopter, though – it looks like something out of a sci-fi film, and Bucky wishes he could appreciate it and stare at it a bit, but he’s in pain and Steve is rushing on board, Natasha on his heels.</p><p>There’s a lot more shouting onboard, and Bucky has enough of a mind about him to count heads. He’s glad to see that everyone’s accounted for. Natasha heads straight for the cockpit where Bucky can see Clint flipping switches and speaking into an earpiece to someone not onboard.</p><p>Steve moves to a row of seats attached to the opposite wall and sets him slowly on one a few seats over from where Sam, Banner and Stark are strapping themselves in. Once Bucky’s down, Steve straightens without even one glance at him, going to stand behind Natasha and barking orders. Then they’re moving and Bucky watches through the window as the aircraft lifts straight up into the air, then shoots forward down another dark tunnel. Sam and Stark are arguing about something beside him, Banner attempting to interrupt occasionally. Bucky watches Steve reach up to grasp a handle on the ceiling as a light at the end of the tunnel grows bigger and bigger, and then they’re outside, flying above the snow. Bucky’s stomach turns at the speed the aircraft picks up its nose and climbs into the sky, but Steve just sways a little, talking quieter now to Natasha and Clint.</p><p>There are a tense few minutes where no one speaks once they stop climbing, but then the tension breaks and Stark laughs. Sam snaps at him, but with humour in his voice. Bucky’s clenching at the too-big sleeves of his coat, understanding now why Steve put him in it. He’s shivering, probably going into shock. Someone’s calling his name, but it sounds far away, difficult to understand. He gets words – ok, blood, why, careful.</p><p>And then, for the second fucking time in front of these people, he passes out.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Here’s another chapter guys, hope you enjoy! </p><p>Side note, this whole fic is unbetaed and written off-the-cuff when I have the time, so I hope you can forgive any minor errors that crop up!</p><p>Thank you so much for all the kudos and amazing comments. Your comments honestly make my day whenever I read one &lt;3</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Bucky opens his eyes to a non-descript white ceiling, he wants to close them again and sleep for eternity and beyond. Although he is wondering where he is, much like when he woke up in the hotel safehouse place, there is no wondering what happened to him or why he is suddenly somewhere new. Bucky remembers it all, from Steve carrying him like Hercules carried Meg from the river Styx (what can he say, Bucky has had a crush on that muscular, cartoon man since he first watched the movie has a child), to the unbearable pain in his leg, to the way he fainted in front of everyone. Bucky shifts enough to feel a bed far more comfortable than the previous one beneath him, and sighs heavily.</p><p>“Mr Barnes,” an amused female voice says. Bucky startles and opens his eyes.</p><p>A pretty woman with a white doctor’s coat and a clipboard is standing over him, making notes of whatever readings are on the machine next to his bed. With a glance down, he notes the electrodes stuck to his chest where the hospital gown – how the hell did he get into a hospital gown – has been pulled down to expose an honestly indecent amount of his chest. There are a couple of cannulas in his <br/>arm, too, connected to a couple of bags of clear fluids hung on the other side of the bed. </p><p>He takes the time to examine the room, too. It’s sterile enough to look like a hospital, with white walls and medical equipment tucked into corners. But there are also a couple of comfy-looking leather armchairs opposite the bed, one next to the bed, and a painting of a waterfall on the far wall. If this is a hospital, it’s likely a high end one. Bucky absolutely cannot afford any type of hospital, let alone a good one. There’s a reason he has so many blankets piled around his apartment – his job doesn’t have health insurance, and one of the ways he avoids having to pay medical bills is to wrap up like a burrito in the winter so he doesn’t end up with pneumonia or something equally dramatic. He wonders if this place has any security and if he’d be able to sneak past on his bum leg.</p><p>The doctor finishes taking her notes and smiles down at him.</p><p>“I’m glad to see you awake, Mr Barnes,” she tells him, “I’m Dr Cho, I’ll be taking care of you while you’re here.” She rests her clipboard on an adjustable overbed table that looks like real wood instead of laminated plastic. Classy. “How are you feeling?”</p><p>“I…” Bucky pauses and runs his tongue along the inside of his lip. It hurts to move, but not much. It’s a bit swollen, too. He remembers biting down until he bled, the metallic taste of panic. “I feel okay, I guess. Tired, but my leg doesn’t hurt as much.”</p><p>Dr Cho nods, glancing down at her clipboard. “Yes, I’m not surprised. We caught the very early stages of an infection at the site of the bullet wound. You’re currently on a low dose of antibiotics to fight it, but because we caught it to early there shouldn’t be any complications. I’ve also given you some saline to get your fluids and strength up.”</p><p>Bucky thinks on that for a moment. “Is that why I fainted? The infection?”</p><p>“Ah, no,” Dr Cho answers with a small smile, “The infection hadn’t had a chance to properly take hold yet. I imagine the reason was a combination of shock, and emotional and physical stress.”</p><p>Bucky nods, staring unseeingly at the painting on the other side of the room. Shock indeed. It makes sense, obviously, but Bucky had honestly thought he would react to situations like that better. Or, at least, he thought he wouldn’t faint on his rescuers. Dr Cho shifts her weight as though to leave, and Bucky lifts a hand to stop her.</p><p>“Wait, where am I?”</p><p>“Don’t answer that,” Stark interrupts as he swans into the room, the door banging against the wall. Bucky hopes he hasn’t chipped the paint. Who knows, they might bill him for that, too. Banner follows Stark inside and closes the door gently, which Bucky appreciates. </p><p>Both men look much more put together than the last time Bucky saw them, Stark in a suit that looks more expensive than Bucky’s whole apartment building, and Banner in a white coat of his own.</p><p>“How are we doing?” Banner asks both Bucky Dr Cho with a smile, disregarding Stark’s offended huff at being ignored.</p><p>“Ah yes, where were we?” Dr Cho says with a pointed, steely look aimed at Stark, who sits in one of the leather armchairs and crosses his arms. “Mr Barnes, your leg is doing well, other than the infection. The Captain did a good job, I should be able to take the sutures out in ten to fourteen days. I’ll keep an eye on it until then. I had to put some stitches in your bottom lip as well, as it seems you partially bit through it. They should fall out on their own within a week, but if they’re causing you any trouble, I can take a look. I want to keep you under observation tonight, but I’ll be happy to discharge you tomorrow.”</p><p>Dr Cho then asks Bucky if he’s hungry – no way, who knows how much he’d have to pay for food – and if he wants her to kick Stark out – no, but it’s a begrudging no. When she leaves, the doctor gives Stark a look that Bucky would actively work to avoid.</p><p>As soon as the door closes behind her, Bucky repeats, “Where am I?”</p><p>“You’re-” Banner starts, but Stark cuts him off.</p><p>“Not yet,” he says, getting to his feet and approaching the foot of Bucky’s bed, “We need to-”</p><p>“Look,” Bucky interrupts Stark in turn, “I don’t need exact coordinates, or for you to point at a spot on a globe, or to even tell me what state we’re in – or what country, for fuck’s sake. All I want to know is if this hospital stay is going to land me in soul-crushing debt.”</p><p>Stark blinks at Bucky, then opens his mouth, but Banner answers instead.</p><p>“You’re in a secured facility,” he says, sitting in the armchair beside the bed, “We call it The Compound. You won’t find it on any maps, and I’m afraid I can’t tell you where it is – where we are – but you seem to know that already.”</p><p>Bucky doesn’t have the energy to be pissed off by it, or even worried. So, he’s at another undisclosed location. Whatever. More importantly – “So I won’t owe anyone any money?”</p><p>“No, Bucky,” Banner answers gently, then frowns. “Are you in some kind of financial trouble? No, wait, you don’t have to answer that, I’m sorry.”</p><p>“No, do answer that,” Stark insists, grabbing the bars at the end of the bed and leaning forward, “I think financial trouble is a good motive to sell out and, oh I don’t know, plant a tracker to lead a group of murderous assholes to a bunch of people you don’t know from Adam.”</p><p>“The fuck are you implying?” Bucky snaps, getting his elbows under him to sit up. His head swims a little, but he ignores it to glare at Stark’s unimpressed face instead, “I’m just a secretary at a small accountancy firm who doesn’t even know anything about accounting. Yeah, I get paid fuck all, but that doesn’t mean I’m some amoral asshole who would try to get someone killed. I don’t even know who you people are, or them!”</p><p>“You wouldn’t have needed to know,” Stark points out, “In fact, it’s better that way. That’s how I would have done it.”</p><p>“Sounds like out of the two of us, I’m not the asshole,” Bucky grits out.</p><p>“Tony, it’s not your job to interrogate him,” Banner points out, sending Bucky an apologetic glance. Stark stares Bucky down for another few moments, before turning away to pace the room. Bucky collapses back onto the bed with a sigh.</p><p>A few minutes pass, and it’s pretty awkward. Bucky gets the feeling they’re waiting for someone else to show up and asks Banner if there’s any chance he could get a sandwich or something. Since the food’s free and all. Banner shoots off a text to someone and soon enough Natasha enters with a platter full of food.</p><p>“He’s clean,” she says in lieu of a greeting, coming around the bed to set the platter down on the fancy table. Stark throws his hands in the air and looks like he’s about the argue, when Natasha shoots him an unreadable look and he sits down again, begrudgingly quiet.</p><p>“I was thorough, Stark,” she assures him, although the way she says it is less of an assurance and more like a threat. “His history, his social media, his texts. All clean. No affiliations, nothing.” She turns to Bucky, “Our boy is just an innocent bystander, after all. Barnes, eat.”</p><p>Bucky picks up a sandwich automatically and takes a bite. It’s roast beef and it melts in his mouth. Then Natasha’s words catch up to him.</p><p>“Wait, you checked my texts?” </p><p>“Straight from the source,” she grins, slipping his cell from a pocket and tossing it to him. He catches it with a slight fumble. Her smile widens. “Who’s Alex?”</p><p>Bucky tries to glare at her, even as he feels a hot flush of embarrassment creep up his neck and over his face. “If you’ve read my texts, you know exactly who he is.”</p><p>Natasha wiggles her eyebrows. Banner hides his smile behind a sandwich.</p><p>“Right. While you lot play happy families, I’m going to go find out how the safehouse was compromised,” Stark snaps, storming out of the room, but not before storming forwards to take a sandwich. Bucky opens his mouth to speak, but Stark is marching back inside with a cylindrical, metal frame in hand. He props it up against the wall beneath the painting, and storms out again.</p><p>“That’s your leg brace,” Banner explains, “He finished it while you were sleeping.”</p><p>“Oh,” Bucky says, surprised. “He still wants me to have it?”</p><p>“Don’t worry about him,” Natasha advises him, perching on the end of the bed and picking at the crust of one of the sandwiches on the tray. “He’s just worried. He’ll be like this until he figures out what went wrong.”</p><p>“He’s blaming himself,” Banner adds, “Since he takes care of security. And since people have been hurt, he’s reacting how he usually does.”</p><p>“Who?” Bucky demands quickly, thinking of Steve and then blushing when Natasha flicks her eyes up at him with a small hint of a smile. “Sorry, just… I saw everyone on the plane thing. Are you all ok?”</p><p>“The quinjet,” Banner offers, “Yes, everyone’s ok.” He pauses, glances at Natasha and then continues, “Steve strained a previous injury, but that’s all. And you do know that we count you as someone who’s been hurt, don’t you?”</p><p>“But he wouldn’t have been hurt if he didn’t have to carry me, would he?” Bucky asks, ignoring Banner’s question and looking down at his hands. </p><p>“It’s his job, Barnes,” Natasha tells him firmly, giving him a hard look. “He protects people, and that’s what he did. Sometimes he gets hurt doing it.”</p><p>“And if we’re honest, there was a certain level of stupidity involved,” Banner adds. “He knew he should have been taking it a bit easier, and that he should have given the order for someone else to bring you to the jet.”</p><p>“Steve has issues with authority,” Natasha tells Bucky in a stage whisper, like it’s a badly kept secret. “Except when that authority is him.”</p><p>Eugh. Bucky really doesn’t need to hear that. It lines up perfectly with the image in Bucky’s head of Steve ordering him around in that deep, smooth voice, and he’s still worried someone is going to read it on his face when he thinks about their leader like that. Natasha’s wearing a small smile, and Bucky doesn’t know her nearly well enough to even guess what it means, but he’s hoping it’s not a direct reaction to his pathetic gay thoughts.</p><p>Natasha and Bruce stay a little while longer, chatting innocuously about what will be for lunch later, and some repairs on something called ‘bites’ that Natasha is hoping Stark can upgrade. Bucky is happy to listen, his lip sore from talking. When they stand up to leave, the door opens and Steve is there, glancing between the three of them with raised brows. He looks soft and touchable in supple-looking jeans and a navy blue henley. Some of his hair has flopped forward into his face. Bucky wants to run his fingers through it. More importantly, Bucky can’t see any sign of injury on him. He uses the excuse to look over Steve’s body a couple more times anyway.</p><p>“Hello,” Steve says to all three of them. Bucky is delighted to hear that Steve is apparently a bit of a dork, the greeting slightly awkward for some reason he cannot fathom. If anyone should be awkward here, it’s Bucky.</p><p>“Don’t leave on account of me,” Steve tells Natasha and Bruce, but they wave him off, listing things they need to go off and do respectively. Once they’ve closed the door behind them, Steve looks at Bucky. “Can I sit?”</p><p>“Knock yourself out,” Bucky shrugs, and watches Steve take the armchair beside the bed. He leans back, and Bucky has to consciously keep his eyes up and on Steve’s face instead of the outline of his pecs. Steve is looking at Bucky’s mouth, which makes his heart skip in his chest excitedly, but Steve’s face is pained. Bucky remembers that he almost bit through his lip and it probably doesn’t look too great right now.</p><p>“That bad, huh?” Bucky asks lightly, touching his lip. “I haven’t had a chance to look, yet.”</p><p>“No, no,” Steve assures him, meeting Bucky’s gaze and smiling tightly, “Does it hurt? And your leg?”</p><p>“My mouth doesn’t hurt too much. It just aches a bit when I talk. My leg feels better than before, probably because I’m sitting still,” Bucky says, but regrets it. Steve seems to take his comment as blame, that pained expression intensifying. Bucky goes to put him right, when Steve lifts his left hand to push his hair back and winces, and Bucky’s attention shifts.</p><p>“You were hurt, when you came to get me,” Bucky says, and he doesn’t mean to sound accusing, but he does and there’s nothing he can do about it now. “And you were the one who was hurt when you stitched me up, right?”</p><p>Steve sighs and lowers his arm without wincing this time, clearly suppressing it. Bucky wants to shake him and tell him that it’s ok to show pain. But he doesn’t know this man, doesn’t know if maybe it isn’t ok for him to show pain. For all Bucky knows, Steve’s a spy or something else that requires a constant level of acting. Does he think Bucky is a plant, too?</p><p>“Yes,” Steve admits, “But it’s not bad. I’ll be fine in a couple days.”</p><p>“If it was you who was injured, why were you the one to stitch me up?” Bucky asks, “I didn’t even notice.”</p><p>“That’s because it’s not a bad injury, Bucky. Just one that needs some rest to let it heal up.” Steve leans forward, fixing Bucky with a serious look, “Bruce wasn’t unavailable at the time because he was with one of the team, he was unavailable because he was trying to keep a prisoner alive for questioning.”</p><p>Bucky blinks. Prisoner? What?</p><p>“Look, Bucky,” Steve lowers his voice, gentles it, and gives Bucky a small smile, that little tick upwards, “I can’t tell you everything, which you know. I’m going to tell you what I can to make you more comfortable. What information I give you now is all I’m likely to ever give you, ok?”</p><p>Steve waits for a response, so Bucky nods, nervous.</p><p>“Good. So, most of the team is made up of people I worked with when we were a part of a very top-secret military organisation. The others were sourced and vetted thoroughly by Natasha. Just over a year ago, we discovered that parts of the organisation had gone rogue and that there was a large, but mostly secret, number of people conspiring with a dangerous, fascist group in Russia whose aim was to dismantle certain areas of the military and government from the inside. I tried to confront my superiors, but they laughed in my face. Either they didn’t believe me, or they were in on it. So, I went AWOL, and my team went with me. Well, it was actually far more complicated than that, but that’s the long and short of it.”</p><p>Bucky lets that sit for a moment, digests it. His head spins at the thought of some evil group of assholes trying to take down the government. Not that the Whitehouse is a paragon of virtue or anything, but he’d rather the devil he knows than a shadowy Russian cabinet.</p><p>“So,” Bucky starts hesitantly, “Now you’re all working to take down these bad guys?”</p><p>Steve huffs a laugh and shake his head. “That’s an oversimplification, but yeah. We’re taking down the bad guys.”</p><p>“Ok,” Bucky nods. Then he nods again, “It’s good to know you’re really not the bad guys.”</p><p>“We aren’t completely innocent, Bucky,” Steve admits, looking away and scrubbing his good hand over his beard. “We helped these people when we were still working for them. Unknowingly, yes, but it’s still something we have to deal with.”</p><p>“It’s not your fault,” Bucky tells him. He means it, too.</p><p>“Well.” Steve pauses, clearly uncomfortable. “It’s strange, speaking to a civilian about this. The only people I’ve spoken to for over a year are the people in this building.” </p><p>“My deepest apologies, seeing as Stark is one of those people.”</p><p>Steve laughs. It’s a loud, real bark of a laugh that seems to take him by surprise if the way he looks at Bucky means anything. “Stark’s not so bad once you get to know him,” Steve reasons, the glances over at the metal frame that Bucky refuses to believe it a brace. It looks more like something out of a sci fi movie. “Has he been bothering you?”</p><p>“No,” Bucky lies, figuring not ratting Stark out to Steve might help in the long run. “He was worried about you, though. Or at least, that’s what Natasha said.”</p><p>“I’m fine,” Steve says.</p><p>“Is that your catchphrase, or something?” Bucky frowns. He realises that the conversation has been completely side-tracked. Steve was supposed to be explaining the situation to him. “How were you injured? Was it the same night I was? That’s one of the things you can tell me, surely?”</p><p>“Ah, yes.” Steve touches a spot high up on his left bicep and looks at Bucky, serious again. “You were knocked out by one of the men who raided the museum. It was my fault you were shot in the first place. I wasn’t on the ball, wasn’t expecting you to be there, so I made sure to get in the way of the second bullet.”</p><p>“Wait, you were shot as well?” Bucky demands, then feels his eyes widen as he realises, “He was going to kill me?”</p><p>“He probably thought you were with us,” Steve says gently. Bucky shakes off the shock and narrows his eyes at Steve, who blinks back in surprise.</p><p>“What do you mean, you made sure to get in the way of a fucking bullet? Are you insane?”</p><p>“It would have killed you,” Steve says slowly, as though Bucky is dim. “And it was just a flesh wound. I’m feeling better already.”</p><p>“Liar,” Bucky calls him out, “Mine’s a flesh wound too, and it hurts like hell whenever I move my leg.”</p><p>“I’m fine, Bucky.”</p><p>“There it is again. Fine.”</p><p>“A thank you wouldn’t go amiss,” Steve says, and his voice is low and firm, and it goes straight to Bucky’s hindbrain. Jesus Christ.</p><p>“Thank you,” Bucky mumbles, his cheeks flaming. </p><p>Steve smiles, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Good,” he says, instead of something normal like ‘you’re welcome’. Bucky shivers, nonetheless.</p><p>“You were saying Dr Banner was treating a prisoner while you stitched me up?” Bucky asks, looking away and taking another sandwich just to have something else to do than stare at Steve staring at him.</p><p>“Oh, yes. We have the man who shot you.”</p><p>“Us.” Bucky corrects faintly, even as he drops the sandwich back on the platter in shock.</p><p>“Shot us,” Steve allows, amused. “He got a little beat up, so Bruce was patching him up for some questioning.”</p><p>Isn’t is illegal or something for Bucky to be so goddammed attracted to a man talking about hurting someone, and then getting them patched up just to hurt them again? Maybe it’s something primal, something about Steve hurting the person who hurt Bucky. Maybe it’s just Steve. Maybe Bucky’s just fucked up. Either way, he really, really wants to jump the guy’s bones. Would it be weird if Bucky said something? Slid a little proposition Steve’s way? Yeah, no, that would be incredibly weird. They don’t know each other.</p><p>“Did he make it out?” Bucky asks, unsure of the answer he wants to hear. Steve watches him quietly for a moment, as though choosing his words carefully.</p><p>“We didn’t have time to go back for him,” he settles on, “Our priority was the team, our intel, and you.”</p><p>Bucky exhales hard. As much as he doesn’t want to think about the fact that someone died, he’s kind of relieved that the man who tried to kill him can’t hurt him anymore. Not that he would have been able to, being a prisoner and all, but the information unties some of the knots Bucky has had in his stomach since Steve mentioned their prisoner was Bucky’s assailant.</p><p>“Anyway, here,” Steve says, breaking Bucky out of his thoughts and placing a brand-new smart phone on the bed. “This is your new phone, for now at least. You can make calls on it without giving away your location, but only if you keep the calls down to about ten minutes at a time. Nat’s put a few of your contacts on it.”</p><p>Bucky stares at Steve for a moment in surprise, then grabs the phone, heading straight for the contact list.</p><p>“I’d appreciate if you could limit what you tell people,” Steve continues, sounding apologetic. “It’s up to you, though. You don’t know enough to put anyone in danger. But in the interest of the safety of your friends and family, I would advise against telling them anything.”</p><p>“So I should come up with a story?” Bucky asks, already hovering a thumb over his sister’s name, ready to call her as soon as possible, but then a question comes to him. It’s such a huge, obvious question, Bucky can’t believe he hasn’t thought of it before now. “Wait,” he says, holding up his other hand to stop Steve from answering his previous question, “I’ll need to know if I’m going to think up some bullshit to feed my family. How long am I going to be here?”</p><p>Steve looks uncomfortable now, as well as apologetic. He goes to run a hand through his hair again, but tries to use his left hand again and flinches.</p><p>“Would you please get Dr Cho to give you a sling,” Bucky sighs, exasperated, “You’re making my arm hurt just watching you.”</p><p>“I’m fine,” Steve bats back automatically, then catches Bucky’s glare and smiles. “I am. It’s just a touch sore. Now,” he says, louder when Bucky tries to interrupt, “to answer your question. Worst case scenario, you’re here until we’ve finished the job. Best case scenario, we get confirmation that the guys we’re hunting don’t know who you are, and bring you home.”</p><p>Bucky senses a ‘but’ coming.</p><p>“But,” there it is, “there’s no way of confirming your safety. We’re still in the dark about a lot of their operations, let alone their intel, so we would be working with guesses and possibly putting you in danger.”</p><p>“Why would they care who I am?”</p><p>“They may try to get information from you, like who exactly we are and where our bases are.”</p><p>“And I could give them names,” Bucky says, realisation dawning on him. He can’t be responsible for these people getting hurt, he just can’t. But still, “What about my family? I can’t call them for more than ten minutes, but you’re assuming these bad guys won’t go after them to get to me?”</p><p>Steve drops his gaze to the phone in Bucky’s hand. “Yes, we are assuming that, but we’re keeping tabs on them. If anything untoward happens, or we spot something unusual in their daily routines, we’ll interfere.” He leans forward and lays his right hand over Bucky’s, looks Bucky right in the eye. “I swear to you that I will do everything in my power to make sure no harm comes to your loved ones, Bucky. It’s my fault you’re here, I won’t let my mistakes affect anyone else.”</p><p>“Steve,” Bucky tries, feeling a little emotional. It’s probably just the weight of the moment, but he feels safe with Steve, and he believes every word he’s saying. </p><p>“Who do you want to call?” Steve asks, taking his hand away and cutting off whatever emotional drivel was about to fall out of Bucky’s mouth. Bucky looks back down at the phone and taps on Becca’s name. When he puts the phone to his ear, Steve gestures to the door, but Bucky shakes his head. It will be helpful, after the call, to hear Steve’s feedback on his lying skills. The biggest lie Bucky has ever told was when he convinced his parents he hadn’t gone rooting through their closet to look for Christmas presents. He’s pretty sure they didn’t even believe him.</p><p>Then Becca picks up and says, “Buck? Are you alright? You didn’t call Saturday, and you didn’t answer any of my texts.”</p><p>Bucky laughs. It’s good to hear his sister’s voice. He’s only been gone a few days, but god it feels like longer.</p><p>“I’m good, Becs,” he says, careful to enunciate and not let his swollen lip make her suspicious. He supposes he could just tell her he sucked some good dick, if she suspects, and now his mouth is bruised.</p><p>“Where the hell have you been?” Becca demands. Bucky can hear the sounds of New York down the line and pictures her waiting for coffee at her favourite place in Manhattan, the place so busy the line always snakes out the door.</p><p>“Well, that’s the thing,” Bucky says slowly, glancing at Steve as a story begins to form in his head, “I quit my job.” That’s the easiest thing to get out of the way, since they’re definitely going to fire him if they haven’t already for not turning up on a Monday.</p><p>“What? Why? I know you, like, hate that place, but it’s still money.”</p><p>“I just couldn’t take sitting at the desk anymore, being treated like shit.” The excuse comes out more truthfully than Bucky had meant it too, and he blinks back the tears that prickle in the corners of his eyes. He turns his face away from Steve, not wanting him to see. “I’m visiting a friend in Florida for a while, to think through some things. I might not call as often, I just need some space.”</p><p>“Buck,” Becca sounds sad, and that’s definitely not helping Bucky’s blurred vision. “You should have told me! We could have ordered Thai and looked for new jobs.”</p><p>“I know, sorry.”</p><p>“Don’t be sorry. I’m glad you had this friend to talk to, at least. Do I know them?”</p><p>“Oh, uh,” Bucky flounders, looks at Steve’s stupidly handsome face and blurts, “Steve. I’m staying with my friend Steve in Florida.”</p><p>Bucky glances at the Steve in question and sees that small smile, happy to have to put it there despite the fact that he’s being laughed at.</p><p>“Oh, Steve, huh?” Becca asks, suggestive, “I don’t think I’ve met this Steve. He hot?”</p><p>Bucky blushes immediately, feeling more than a little awkward at being asked if Steve – who is sat right there for god’s sake – is hot. As if he hasn’t been thinking about how hot Steve is since he met the guy, despite having a bullet hole in his own leg. He glances at Steve again, who Bucky would say is grinning if he didn’t know better. He looks like he’s fighting down a laugh. Bucky discretely presses the button on the side of the phone to turn down the volume. Surely Steve didn’t hear that?</p><p>“Becca, come on,” Bucky protests, hearing the whine in his voice and wishing he told Steve to leave instead of staying to hear this abomination of a conversation with his older sister. “He’s just a friend who’s helping me out.”</p><p>“Helping you out?” Becca laughs, “Sounds like more than a friend to me.”</p><p>“Oh my god,” Bucky mutters, ignoring the now openly grinning Steve. “Stop. Please.”</p><p>“Ok, ok. How long are you in Florida for? Can I come visit? We can go to Disneyworld!”</p><p>“Oh, well,” Bucky fiddles with his blankets, beginning to feel the weight of not being able to see his sister for an undetermined amount of time. His parents? Fine, they aren’t incredibly close anyway. But his sister? Missing brunch every other weekend? Not having her come knocking on his door randomly for a sleepover? Yeah, that’s gonna suck. “I don’t know, Becs. I’m… Can I get back to you on that? I’ll probably be here a while, so maybe sometime later,” he hedges.”</p><p>“Well alright,” Becca says, and Bucky hates the note of uncertainty and worry in her voice, “It’s not like I want to come all the way down to the ass crack of the south anyway. When are you going to start looking for jobs? And what about your apartment?”</p><p>Well shit. Something else Bucky needs to think about.</p><p>“I’ll try and get it sublet or something. I don’t know about work, Becs. I can’t go back to another shitty desk job.”</p><p>“You don’t have to,” Becca reminds him, her voice firmer than before, “You have a degree you’re not using. Experience you’re not using, too. You can’t let him get in your head, Buck. It’s over, and it has been for a long time. You’re good enough to work in engineering for whichever fancy, techy company you want, if you just tried.”</p><p>“I know.”</p><p>“No, you don’t. That’s the problem. Just promise me you’ll think it over while you’re on this crazy sex holiday with Hot Steve! Don’t just settle for a shitty admin job.”</p><p>“Becca!”</p><p>“Promise me!”</p><p>“I promise.”</p><p>“Good. Text me.”</p><p>“I’ll try to stay in contact, I promise.”</p><p>“Yeah, you do that. Love you, nerd.”</p><p>“Love you, too.”</p><p>Bucky hangs up and drops the phone on the bed. God, it was so good to talk to his sister. She’s always been an integral part of his conscience. What the hell is he going to do without seeing her for who-the-fuck-knows how long? And, well, he’ll miss her. She’s his best friend.</p><p>He doesn’t realise he’s starting to cry until Steve comes to perch on the edge of the bed and envelops Bucky in his arms. Bucky leans into him, hoping that Steve isn’t martyring himself and hurting his arm by holding him, and closes his eyes tight against the tears. </p><p>“I’m sorry you got dragged into this,” Steve says, murmuring the words into Bucky’s hair. It’s so different, so opposing to the Steve he has presented to Bucky so far, that Bucky can’t hold it back anymore. He lets it out, cries against Steve’s chest as a large, warm hand runs gently up and down his back.</p>
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